


Awash

by thesinfulship



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Floor Sex, New 52, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6148391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesinfulship/pseuds/thesinfulship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since Julie came into Bruce's life, his world had exploded in color.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThoughtfulConstellations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulConstellations/gifts).



Something magical happened when Julie lost herself in painting. 

Maybe it was her eyes, the vibrant colors of the paints reflected back into the striking light blue. How they looked sharply focused and yet soft and relaxed all at once, how her long lashes flicked up and down as she looked to different parts of the canvas. 

Maybe it was her lips. They would part just a little, her jaw loosening a little as the language of the art took away any need to speak. She would bite her lower lip sometimes, when she leaned back to scrutinize her work, leaving it dark and slightly swollen as she got back to work. 

Or maybe it was the movements of her body. She could be a dancer or an orchestra conductor depending on how she moved the brush, sometimes long, fluid strokes and sometimes fiery, sharp attacks. Her whole body was behind every drop of paint, the brush an extension of her arm, of her mind.  
Bruce could watch her paint for hours. 

On this particular day, he stood in the doorway for a long time, utterly still and silent as he watched. He never liked to interrupt her, but he sometimes snuck in to offer her some tea or give her a kiss or a quick rub at her neck, just to make sure she was all right. But this time he couldn’t bring himself to do it, couldn’t bring himself to break the spell. 

Julie sometimes seemed to Bruce like a living rainbow. Her coloring, her tattoos, her preference for vibrant clothing and jewelry…all of these came together to create something bold, but the real brightness of her came from within. It was as though she induced some sort of synesthesia in Bruce, and maybe that was just part of being in love with an artist, but he couldn’t think of any better ways to describe her than with color. Her laugh was warm and yellow, her smile sweet pink, that low, soft tone of voice she used late at night a rich amber. Her touch felt like lavender, her kiss burgundy, her scent somewhere between cream and blush. Since she came into his life, Bruce’s world had exploded in color, like he had been living in Kansas all along and Julie had led him to Oz. 

It wasn’t even dawn yet, so Julie was painting by dim lamplight, which was an unusual practice for her. But then, this was an unusual painting. There was none of that lively brightness that had long since been her signature; rather, the large canvas had been covered in swirls of dark blue and green. There was the occasional little dash of yellow, but even that seemed more muted than it normally would have been. Bruce watched closely, trying to figure out where she was going with it. 

After a long while watching, Bruce took a step into the room. Just a step, nothing obtrusive, not making any sound, but it was enough that Julie set down the brush and turned to him. Neither of them spoke, but she held out her hand to invite him to join her. He stepped close and took it, standing behind her and gazing closely at the canvas as she bit her bottom lip and appraised her work. From this angle, he could see the dark gray outlines of a skyline – Gotham. He hadn’t been able to tell from the doorway, but she was painting the city, and the little bits of yellow were meant to be lit windows. 

He lifted his free hand to her shoulder, pressing a little to work out the knots as they continued to gaze at the canvas. There was something mesmerizing about it, something about it that tugged at Bruce’s mind and gut as he stared. All at once, he realized what that odd feeling was, and it made him straighten up a little. He realized he was remembering this exact view of the city, from way up high over the streets, though how he would have gotten up so high or why, he couldn’t say. Presumably it was some view from some building his family’s fortune had been invested in, and maybe that’s why he would have been up there. He frowned a little as he looked at it, trying to remember and failing so frustratingly that he let out a little irritated breath that made Julie turn to look at him with concern. 

He couldn’t quite verbalize what he was feeling, couldn’t quite organize the thoughts, but the great thing about Julie was that she always seemed to understand when this happened. She wouldn’t push him or press with questions, not unless he spoke first and indicated that he wanted that. Instead, she just watched him patiently, her eyes surely finding some little detail in his face she hadn’t noticed before, something that would make it into the next sketch. 

She stood on tiptoe and slowly leaned in to kiss him gently, burgundy flooding Bruce’s senses. Her scent mingled with linseed oil and stretched canvas to turn it a foggy gray, a dizzying combination that he wished he could bottle. He kissed her back harder than he had meant to, kissed her like he was searching for something but he didn’t know what it was, didn’t know where to look, didn’t know why he was looking, and burgundy turned to bright red that bordered on orange like a fire, and he didn’t know how it happened but soon she was in his arms with her legs around his waist. 

Her hair had been pulled back while she worked, and Bruce found the elastic tie and tugged, pulling it out of her hair and accidentally snagging it. A few long, bright hairs broke off with the hair tie and fell to the floor, but if it hurt, she made no indication and only kissed him harder. Something was clearly stirring in her too, and it was clear that neither was interested in making it back to the bedroom. They needed each other right then and there. 

They wound up on the floor, Bruce on his back, tarp crinkling under them as they yanked at the loose, scant clothes they had worn to sleep in. Most of the time, sex between them was either hot and playful or sweet and romantic, so there was usually a pattern to it. Hot and playful meant a lot of smiling and nipping at each other, Julie wiggling out of her clothing and Bruce tossing his aside. Sweet and romantic called for slow, gentle undressing of each other as though unwrapping a precious gift. But this, this was more like doing away with something that was unimportant, as though trying to skip a step that didn’t ultimately matter. Their clothes were gone quickly and without ceremony, and then they were kissing again. 

She tasted like sleep and jasmine tea, rich green, and Bruce could feel wet paint on her hands as they roamed around his body. She sat up a little and looked down at him, staring a moment and seeing how the paint on her hands had left marks against raised scars, making them stand out even more than usual. Something changed in her expression, darkened it a bit, and when she kissed him then Bruce’s whole world went crimson and white and jet, and he couldn’t think, didn’t care to for once. 

They kissed and touched for what felt like forever and no time at all, grasping and dragging hands along each other’s skin. Julie felt so soft, little dry patches of paint here and there contrasting with the smoothness of her skin. Bruce’s hands always felt so rough and huge against her, easily spanning her waist, and sometimes he worried he might accidentally hurt her. He was strong, unusually strong, and she looked awfully trim and delicate by comparison, and even though she had taut muscles from an active lifestyle of her own, Bruce still occasionally found himself hesitant with her. This night, though, she placed her hands over his, pressed, encouraged him to go for it. 

So he did. He clutched at her and pulled her in to kiss even harder, to touch her, to feel how both their bodies got hotter and tenser with need. She shocked him a little by moving back and lowering her hips without warning, starting to take him in with a sharp inhale. She was trying to move too fast, not giving her body a chance to adjust to him, and he caught her a bit to get her to slow down. A little whimper caught in her throat as she paused, as she let her muscles loosen to take him in further. This was not the usual thing either, Julie being in a rush, and Bruce laced his fingers with hers to reassure her. 

Once she was as far down as she could go, once she had given herself another moment to adjust to him, once his hands were on her hips and thumbing gently at the bones there, she started to move. Her pace was not fast or slow, but still hard, still needy and almost desperate. What she was working out, he didn’t know, but he felt a sort of catharsis creeping up deep inside his mind. As she moved up and down along him, making little throaty gasps, he became vaguely aware that there was paint on his hands, too, that he must have pressed his hand into some of the drips on the tarp, and there were smears along Julie’s skin now. It was hypnotic. 

She sounded like gray wind as she breathed, felt magenta where she slid over him, and when she pulled at his shoulders to urge him to sit up, everything started to swirl together. She started a hard grind in his lap, her arms around his back, and he had laid in several puddles of different-colored paint without realizing it, and it all blended together along his skin. The paint made its way to his front, to his face as Julie touched and held him, and he tangled his hands into her hair with a deep groan. 

She had started whimpering, tiny sounds in her throat in rhythm with her movements, and Bruce couldn’t help countering her in every way. He held her closer, held her so tightly it was hard to tell where one of them ended and the other began. Julie made to kiss him, but all she could manage was a hard gasp into his mouth as she suddenly came hard, shaking and tensing all over. Bruce pressed a hand against her hair, murmuring to her and trying to comfort her through it, even as his own body screamed for its own release. 

When she had regained her senses after a long moment, she pulled back and looked at him with glassy eyes, then kissed him fiercely and pulled even more at his shoulders. She was urging him to get on top, to be at the angle he needed, and he could have groaned with relief if he weren’t so completely focused on how it felt to kiss her as he moved them. He felt her hands on his shoulders, gripping for an anchor as he pushed deeper into her, as he went faster, and it didn’t take long before he let out a hard, short sound and lost himself in her. 

He became vaguely aware of her hand in his hair, her voice in his ear, the amber tone of it washing over him like a fall breeze, and he realized he was giving her too much of his weight. He rolled to the side, back onto the paint-covered tarp, and he took several deep breaths. Julie curled up beside him, resting against him with one arm and one leg thrown over him as though to keep him there with her, not that he had any intention of moving away. Not when he felt like this, not when she was there. He looked at her, smiling a little at the sight. Her hair was a mess, tangled and loose and everywhere, and they were both thoroughly covered in paint. She blinked at him, her own smile slow and soft. 

The sun had just started to peek through the window, throwing new colors onto everything and waking them both up a bit more. Bruce put a hand on her face, smudging dark blue on her cheek, and pulled her gently in to kiss. They lay there for a long time, just quiet in the morning light, kissing now and then, Bruce trailing his hand up and down her back, until they finally had to get up for the day. Bruce opted to throw together some breakfast while Julie took the first shower, and he found himself with a cup of tea standing in front of the dark cityscape on the canvas again. 

It still nagged at him, still beat against the glass wall of his locked-away memories, but then he felt Julie’s arm around his waist and looked at her. She smiled at him, and the world went sweet pink, and Bruce turned his back on the darkness in favor of her light.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the #1 Bruce/Julie shipper, ThoughtfulConstellations, who gave me the idea of hot sexy paint times. Go read her stuff, she's awesome.


End file.
